Shadow Dancing
by coldqueen
Summary: A series of ten drabbles centered on Cameron and Derek and their very unusual relationship. Maybe a little shippy. COMPLETE
1. A Helping Hand

**Title: **A Helping Hand

**Genre:** Television

**Series:** Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles

**Characters:** Cameron Philips, Derek Reese

**Spoilers: **2x01-_Samson and Delilah_

**Rating: **PG

**Summary: **They'd never be friends.

**Author's Note:** This is written for 10_quotes, a livejournal community. (If you hit up my ElJay via my profile here you can even find a link to my fanfic!journal where I've included a purty header for this! ElJay, for all your ultimate viewing pleasures.)

**Word Count:** 500

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**Prompt: **The Wizard of Oz-"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain."

* * *

Derek Reese would never be accused of liking a machine. He refused to go near the programmable coffeemaker, let alone a computer, and never mind a walking computer with enough artificial intelligence to destroy the world.

Usually in such matters he was over-ruled by either Sarah Connor or her son, his future general, John Connor. It was highly unusual for Derek to entertain anything but hostile thoughts toward Cameron Philips, so it was terribly surprising to find him working alongside her willingly.

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. He's too short," Cameron noted _sotto voce_ as they moved further into the bar. Though Cameron had run several scenarios, all telling her that she could handle the situation on her own, she had bowed to the Connors' continuing suspicion and allowed Derek to join her. She thought, logically, that he might only prove a hindrance.

Derek swallowed back the frustrated sigh and drew comfort from rubbing the pad of his thumb across the rough texture on the grip of his gun. When he was sure he could hold back the irritation in his voice, an effort he knew would go unnoticed by the terminator next to him but an effort he put forth anyways, he asked, "Too short for what?"

"The man who placed the bomb underneath the truck. He was not in the internet café when we attacked. He is a," Cameron paused and tilted her head to the side in a way that Derek would never admit was cute, "loose thread."

Derek cocked his eyebrow at what was clearly unnatural coming from her mouth. "Okay. How will we know if we've found the right person?"

"I will know," Cameron replied succinctly, turning her mercurial eyes back towards the bar dwellers and using her sensors to compare each to the physical parameters she had on file.

"This may seem like a stupid question, but how?" Derek continued, more uncomfortable with silence than with her presence. Silence reminded him too much of nerve-wracking memories from the bunkers during combat. Mindless chatter was a human characteristic and even during those troubling times people couldn't quite restrain it.

Derek froze for a second as he realized that he was expecting Cameron to have that human characteristic, or at least to indulge his.

As his eyes sliced to the side, studying the smooth profile of the machine that he refused to give gender in spoken word but still thought of as a 'she' in his mind, Derek realized that he'd been spending too much time with John. Clearly that had to be the cause for this lapse in judgment.

Derek called on years of training and forced his face to remain placid, pulling back his hatred and anger. Cameron stopped scanning the room and turned the dark depths of her eyes on him. "Even while shutting down I did a scan of the attackers. When I rebooted the second time, the parameters were clear."

Derek nodded slowly. "Thank you for explaining."

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Review, please.


	2. Double Vision

**Title: **Double Vision

**Genre:** Television

**Series:** Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles

**Characters:** Cameron Philips, Derek Reese

**Spoilers: **2x05: _Goodbye to All That_

**Rating: **PG-13 (for language)

**Summary: **Confessions come easier in the dark of night.

**Author's Note:** This is written for 10_quotes.

**Word Count:** 500

* * *

**Prompt: **_Casablanca_-"You might as well question why we breathe. If we stop breathing, we'll die. If we stop fighting our enemies, the world will die."

* * *

"Sometimes it takes me off guard."

His quiet words in the dark of night did not startle her. Her sensors betrayed his intent to speak seconds before he did, and with her processing speed, seconds could seem like eons. She wondered, in those brief seconds, what he would say. She prepared herself for an angry onslaught, the usual hatred spilling from his lips.

Cameron Philips wasn't programmed to feel pain or shame.

Derek Reese's quiet admission, however, was unexpected and had the same effect on her. She was taken off guard, a large feat for the cyborg. "What?" She asked in a monotone voice, giving no thought to adding human inflection to the word. Derek wouldn't appreciate the endeavor.

"This time, this place," Derek explained. He stood at the window, his scarred and callused hands holding the fragile cloth of the curtains apart. His face was like stone as he stared out into the dark, taking in the view with eyes of the same approximate color as the sky. Unconsciously Cameron's head tilted just slightly to the side as she studied his face. "I saw a deer the other day. A real live deer. I hadn't seen one in...years. It froze me. I couldn't move, I could just stare at it. When I first came back, me and all my men had moments like that. The first time we saw a bird, a flower, the fucking sun!" Derek said in strangely jerking tones, his face contorting as he struggled to stay quiet. Cameron knew that it was not for her that he tried to hold back, but that it was because he didn't want to wake Sarah or John.

"There are deer in the laboratories," Cameron noted quietly, simply stating the fact. The human memories of Allison Young were far too fresh in her mind, and the sight of a snarling tiger pushing at the confines of its cage flashed in front of her eyes, briefly blotting out Derek's face.

"There's everything in the laboratories," Derek bit out. He turned his head to stare accusingly at her, as if she herself had been the machine to drag all the magnificent animals from their ruined and contaminated habitats and into the dirty and barren wasteland of holding cells. He forced himself to take a deep breath before he spoke again. "There are days when I just want to walk away. To stop running and to stop fighting and to just breathe." He smiled bitterly before looking away again.

It seemed like something was occurring between them, a connection that she'd only felt once before with John Connor. After her incident with her malfunctioning chip, however, that connection had been severed. Cameron asked because in the dark of this night it seemed almost like she and Derek were kin, creatures of the same ilk. "Why?"

"You might as well question why we breathe," Derek said softly. "If we stop breathing, we'll die. If we stop fighting our enemies, the world will die."

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Review, please.


	3. Curiosity Kills the Cat

**Title: **Curiosity Killed the Cat

**Genre:** Television

**Series:** Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles

**Characters:** Cameron Philips, Derek Reese

**Spoilers: **2x07: _Brothers of Nablus_

**Rating: **PG

**Summary: **Cameron knows more than he thinks.

**Author's Note:** This is written for 10_quotes.

**Word Count:** 500

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**Quote:** _Tootsie_-"Friends?" - "No, we are not friends. I don't take this shit from friends. Only lovers."

* * *

"Who's Jesse?"

Derek continued to reassemble the freshly cleaned semi-automatic gun as if he hadn't heard her. It was how he preferred to deal with Cameron, ignore her if possible, verbally scorn her if not. It was the only way he could keep a lid on the volatile emotions within him.

"My files list who was assigned to the mission with you, there was no "Jesse" among them. Conclusion; you lied to Sarah Connor," Cameron stated, moving through the kitchen until she stood in front of him. She still wore the clothes she'd had on when she'd shot those three men at the bowling alley, small droplets of blood shining dully on the leather of the fingerless gloves. Derek found himself focusing on that crimson glint as his mind struggled to find an explanation for the easy lie that had slid off his tongue earlier that day.

"I didn't lie to-"

"You lied. Why?" Cameron interrupted, tilting her head to the side as she studied his stoic face.

"I never said Jesse traveled back with me. I just said he was our diamond guy, didn't say he was from the future," Derek replied smartly, setting aside the locked and loaded gun and reaching for another. The reacquired diamonds were back in Sarah's room, Jesse was back at her hotel, but he couldn't sleep. The silence of the night and the quiet rustling from the Connors' rooms seemed to taunt him and his secrets.

Despite how ecstatic he was to have someone with him, someone who knew what it was like after Judgment Day, someone who'd fought alongside him instead of against him. After his men were killed, all Derek had were his memories of dark nights, dangerous battles, and lost friends. Jesse's reappearance in his life almost seemed like a gift. A rare light in his otherwise dark and lonely life.

More and more often it was beginning to seem like she was more a curse than anything. Forced to lie to the Connors, forced to hide where he was, missing important fights, important decisions, important missions; Derek was forgetting his purpose, forgetting why he was here.

"You're still lying," Cameron replied, sliding into the seat across from him. Her empty brown eyes were unnaturally bright in the dim kitchen. "Your pulse spikes when you use the pronoun 'he'. Jesse is a female."

"Leave it alone, metal," Derek said through grinding teeth. His fingers clenched around the grip of the gun he should've been cleaning.

"I will not tell Sarah," Cameron said after several seconds silence. "I do not believe you would endanger John."

Derek released the breath he'd been holding and set the gun down. "She's just a friend."

"Like Riley is John's friend?"

Derek snorted, his disapproval clear. "Yeah, something like that."

"Is Sarah your friend?"

Derek raised his eyes and studied Cameron, not sure what she was getting at. "No, we are not friends. I don't take this shit from friends. Only lovers."

"Is Jesse your lover?"

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Review, please.


	4. Her Inner Workings

**Title: **Her Inner Workings

**Genre:** Television

**Series:** Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles

**Characters:** Cameron Philips, Derek Reese

**Spoilers: **2x09 "Complications"

**Rating: **PG

**Summary: **Derek called Cameron for a possible identification, but she called him back for answers.

**Author's Note:** This is written for 10_quotes.

**Word Count:** 500

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**Prompt: **Lawrence of Arabia-"Are you badly hurt?" "I'm not hurt at all."

* * *

"Are you badly hurt?"

"I'm not hurt at all."

"You missed a check-in. John was worried."

Derek glanced around the empty warehouse before moving deeper into its shadows. Jesse knew some of why he was here in this time, but she didn't know everything. Unfortunately, the same thing applied to what he knew of her.

"If John was worried why isn't John calling me?"

Cameron's hesitation echoed over the phone. "He's with Riley."

"If John was really concerned, he'd have called. Are you worried about me, metal? Oh, wait, worry is an emotion," Derek noted as he continued his restless pacing.

"Any disruption in normal routine can be a sign of a larger problem," Cameron replied matter-of-factly. She overlooked his bad attitude and snippy words with apathy only a cyborg could achieve.

"Yeah, we have a larger problem, but it ain't me."

"Neither Sarah nor myself has been able to influence John on the subject of Riley," Cameron replied. It was the longest conversation he'd ever had with the machine and for once he was in no hurry to end it. Between Jesse's sureties that Fisher was an operative from the future and his own lack of memories regarding the event Derek felt like he was caught between a rock and a hard place. His instincts were telling him to get out of there, the situation was something he didn't want to be involved in, but his own feelings for Jesse were holding him.

"Yeah, I've seen. Boy is as hardheaded now as he is in the future."

Cameron pointed out, "You haven't tried. Perhaps a male figure would have more effect than a female one."

Derek didn't admit that he had no right to tell John about inappropriate female companionship given the situation he was in. Not only was Derek involved with an AWOL Jesse, but he was also finding himself slipping in his contentions against the resident Terminator.

When Derek didn't respond to Cameron's observation, she continued in a different vein of conversation. "Who was the man earlier?"

"What man?"

"The one bound and gagged and bloody."

"I have no idea, that's why I asked you."

"Who does Jesse say he is?"

Derek was shocked momentarily. "How do you know who Jesse is?"

"Your long periods of inactivity combined with phone records led me to a hotel room registered to Jesse Reese. I have observed the two of you on several occasions. As there seemed to be no threat, I did not bring it to Sarah's attention."

"What else have you not brought to our attention just because it didn't seem a threat?"

Cameron paused as if to contemplate that. "Nothing important."

"Who decides what's important?"

"I do."

"You're a machine, how do you know what's important?"

Cameron didn't answer.

"Cameron?"

It was the first time he'd ever said her name. It sounded odd coming out of his lips, but Derek couldn't help that.

"You don't understand how I work. Neither does John or Sarah. None of you."

* * *

Review, please.


	5. Rough Gravel

**Title: **Rough Gravel

**Genre: **Television

**Series: **Terminator-Sarah Connor Chronicles

**Characters: **Cameron Philips, Derek Reese

**Spoilers: **2x8-_Mr. Ferguson Is Ill Today_

**Rating: **PG

**Summary: **Derek and Cameron go for a drive.

* * *

**Prompt: **Taxi Driver-_ The days go on and on... they don't end._

* * *

It wasn't a long ride, only an hour between city and small town. If it had been anyone but her in the truck with him the air wouldn't have inaudibly crackled with tension. The radio remained silent; the songs from Derek's youth repeating incessantly had long ceased to amuse him. The only sound in the enclosed cab was the hard grate of metal on metal as she rhythmically disarmed and disassembled the gun she'd pulled from her waistband as they'd slid into the truck and started towards John and his latest trouble.

Derek wanted to accuse her, their supposed protector, of failing in her job. She'd let John slip out into the night and into trouble, ignorant of his intentions. Derek didn't need to see her face to know that it was bothering her. She was a machine, programmed to do the job and little else, and any factor that screwed up her mental equations caused her to reassess endlessly. Her eyes would become unfocused as her mind scrambled to predict the outcome, her lips pursed tightly and her hands moving through the motions of some thoughtless task without stop. He'd seen it before, when they'd had to scramble to move the first time. That entire night she'd sat at the kitchen table, her eyes twitching from side to side as if reading a book he couldn't see. Her fingers had moved through the process of cleaning all of their guns easily, small childlike fingers looking delicate beside the warm gleam of metal barrels.

Halfway there, the rush of wind past the windows and the seventeenth click of a shell sliding into the chamber broke his control.

"How did this happen? Why weren't you watching?"

"Why weren't you?" Cameron replied, her attention sliding from her thoughts to Derek's face.

Derek smiled without humor. "It's not my job to baby-sit, it's yours."

Cameron tilted her head to the side, silent as she contemplated his statement. "Agreed."

Derek couldn't hide his surprise. "What?"

"I was supposed to be watching John. I wasn't."

Derek didn't know how she could speak so monotone but still make it clear that underneath her metal skeleton there were things going on that he didn't want to recognize.

Derek's voice was quieter, less accusing, when he next spoke. "Where were you?"

"I went for a walk," she replied, turning her head to stare out the window, her gun laying quiet in her lap for the first time in half an hour.

"You went for a walk? Why?"

Cameron was silent for several moments again, and when she turned to look at him her eyes held colors and feelings that Derek desperately didn't want to see. He turned his eyes back to the road and concentrated on the feel of the rough pavement beneath his tires. Her voice broke his concentration, but he could at least pretend her words didn't affect him.

"The days go on and on. They don't end, not for me."

"So you walk?"

"I walk."

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Review, please.


	6. Soldier

**Title: **Soldier

**Genre:** Television

**Series: **Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles

**Characters: **Cameron Philips, Derek Reese

**Spoilers: **2x14-_The Good Wound_

**Rating: **PG

**Summary: **Derek doesn't understand how she let this happen.

**Author's Note: **This was written for 10_quotes.

**Word Count:** 500

**Crossposted:** scc_fic

_____

**Quote: **To Kill a Mockingbird-"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

_____

Derek didn't like hospitals. She didn't need to be a body chemistry reading cyborg to recognize that simple fact. His eyes slid around the tableau in the hallway without stopping, he bit his bottom lip repeatedly, and his fists clenched and unclenched; all without conscious effort on his part.

Cameron found it easy to diagnose his conflict with this place. In their time, places this clean and sterile could only mean it was Skynet territory. The resistance had no need for hospitals, not when their main way of dealing with illness and disease was to sever the weak link.

"How did this happen?"

Derek's sudden question surprised Cameron, more from the fact that he'd chosen to speak to her than his curiosity over the circumstances. They sat next to each other in the hallway, directly across from Riley's hospital room where John was even now trying to get answers to that very question.

She took her time before speaking, drawing up different conclusions and disregarding them until she'd found one that she felt Derek would accept. "I don't know."

Derek's head swung back to her, incredulity spreading across his face. "You don't know?"

Cameron nodded. "Her actions do not match the parameters."

Derek stopped fidgeting and turned his entire body until he could look her in the face. "Explain."

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." Cameron said quietly, her eyes glazing over as she went over her thoughts. "I ran a program, inserted all variables and situations, and this was never a result. Her actions and her situation do not match. Conclusion, she's lying about something, a variable large enough to shift the entire result matrix."

Cameron's eyes sharpened as she finished her train of thought and turned to Derek. His eyes were wide and somewhat wary as he spoke to her. "Sometimes I forget what you are; not completely, but enough."

Cameron tilted her head and thought of all the implications of his simple admission. "You shouldn't do that."

"Don't I know it," Derek scoffed lightly. He turned his face from her, deliberately, and gestured to the room across from them. "So she's lying."

"Yes. I tried to inform John, he was recalcitrant, however."

Derek's lips quirked, just a tiny bit. "Recalcitrant, huh?"

"Obstinate, headstrong, stubborn-"

"I know what it means, metal," Derek replied sharply, standing and moving to the door, glaring in at John who remained oblivious to his protectors. "What do we do about this?"

Cameron remained silent, unsure of the reaction that Derek wanted and unwilling to provoke another altercation.

"I want you to watch Riley. See what game she's playing and what John has to do with it," Derek said suddenly, turning to stare down at her.

"I don't take orders from you, Lieutenant Reese."

"General Connor isn't here, and someone needs to be giving them." He paused and considered her. "Will you follow me?"


	7. Blood and Water

**Title: **Blood and Water

**Genre:** Television

**Series: **Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles

**Characters: **Cameron Philips, Derek Reese

**Spoilers: **2x20-_"To The Lighthouse"_

**Rating: **PG

**Summary: **Derek and Cameron after they made their escape from the warehouse.

**Author's Note: **This was written for 10_quotes.

**Word Count:** 500

**Cross-posted:** scc_fic

* * *

**Quote: **It Happened One Night-_"Why didn't you take off all your clothes? You could have stopped forty cars." - "Well, ooo, I'll remember that when we need forty cars."_

* * *

Cameron was soaking wet from head to toe, the long tendrils of her dark hair making her eyes gaze out of her face even more prominently than usual; she was the picture of temptation, all wide-eyed innocence and repressed sexuality. Derek saw her for what she was, but forcing himself to see what others would see, what John chose to see, only made him more confused.

"It does not appear that anyone is going to give us a ride back to the truck," Cameron noted in her soft monotone voice, dropping her hand back to her side as she watched another vehicle speed past.

"Why'd you park it so far away, anyways?" Derek snapped, struggling not to grimace as a cramp seized up his calf muscle.

"I did not want to risk being seen. I had no information on who had kidnapped you."

"So you park the truck _five miles away_?"

Cameron nodded. "I calculated the optimum distance to escape notice."

Derek glared at her but didn't reply. They walked silently for several minutes, her awkward silent steps an easy match for his stomping ones. Every couple of seconds he'd glance over at her then away. He wanted to ask her a question, but he knew he would most likely be thrown off by the answer.

"Are you in pain?" She asked suddenly, stopping her forward movement and turning to him.

Derek stopped as well, but didn't turn to her. "It's just a Charlie Horse, I'll walk it off."

"You are in pain," Cameron noted, more to herself than him. She studied the cars that sped past on the highway and suddenly nodded her head. She reached for the hem of her shirt and pulled it up, baring her chest for the world to see. Derek goggled at her for several seconds, shocked by the sudden movement and out-of-character action.

Then he became aware of the screeching brakes of several vehicles as they made sudden and unexpected stops. Turning to face the road Derek couldn't help but grin. "Why didn't you take off all your clothes? You could have stopped forty cars."

"I will remember that when we need forty cars," Cameron replied matter-of-factly as she reached for the back door of one of the stopped vehicles and gestured for him to get in. As he slid across the seat, leaving room for her, she spoke to the driver. "Thank you for stopping."

They had only been driving for several seconds when Derek asked the question that had been lingering on his mind since their escape. "Why'd you come for me?"

"It was not a large risk to rescue you. If you were to disappear suddenly, Sarah and John would believe I killed you. In order to protect John, he must trust me. Riley's death has not shaken his trust, but yours would," Cameron explained, her voice dipping low so the driver couldn't hear.

"Why?" Derek asked, still sore about his part in that mess.

"Blood is thicker than water."

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Review, please.


	8. Here I Was Born, and There I Died

**Title: **Here I Was Born, and There I Died

**Genre: **Television

**Series: **Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles

**Characters: **Cameron Philips, Derek Reese

**Spoilers:** 2x21-_"Adam Raised a Cain"_

**Rating:** PG

**Summary: **She'd seen many dead bodies before, but somehow seeing Derek's was different.

**Word Count: **500

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**Quote: **_Vertigo_- "Here I was born, and there I died. It was only a moment for you; you took no notice."

* * *

There's a space between her eyes that has gone numb and its nothing Cameron has ever felt before. Her sensors don't register an error in her hardware (if you forgive the bullet holes), and her software is kept in optimum shape by John Connor himself. There is no explanation for the void of sensation she feels except that there is an exterior variable she is not factoring in.

Derek is dead.

She hesitates at his body, her auditory sensors picking up the firefight outside and her programming tells her to move past the fallen Resistance fighter, but she hesitates. She pauses just at his feet, the blood from his head slowly forming a crimson halo on the floor, and the space between her eyes goes numb. Her sensors evaluate her body and her "mind" in less than a second and her momentary confusion (she hesitated) falls by the wayside as her primary objective reasserts itself aggressively. She must protect John Connor.

It takes less than a minute for her to seek out the other Terminator on the balcony and to remove him from the situation long enough for the trio of humans to make their escape.

Sarah removes all the important documents from Derek's body and takes his gun and Cameron sees that Sarah doesn't falter for even a second. Death is natural for humans, and Sarah and John have seen more of it than most. Cameron has seen easily triple the amount of death that they have and caused exactly 93.8% of the dead she's seen. She lacks the emotion that the loss of life inspires in others, but Cameron finds it interesting that Sarah seems to hold the same apathy for this situation that Cameron does.

John is close to crying, Cameron has seen the phenomena enough times that she recognizes the warning signs. His chest pauses in its machinations of breathing and the girl in his arms shifts slightly at the break in rhythm. The small movement distracts him from the grief that is rising in him and Cameron watches his eyes cloud over with determination. Sarah moves to leave, ordering him to do the same, and Cameron finds her visual sensors drawn to Derek once again, one last time.

It's a waste, she deduces, and perhaps proof that humans will never be good protectors. They make mistakes, let their adrenaline get the better of them. Derek should have known to shield himself, he'd been in battle enough times that the scenario wasn't unfamiliar to him. He should have kept hidden until he'd had a clear shot and he would be alive now, glaring at her and making a snippy comment about bullets bouncing off metal. Cameron wondered briefly where his head had been, what he'd been thinking, that he'd allowed himself to become cannon fodder.

John walks through her line of vision and Cameron's eyes track his movement. She follows him almost immediately.

She hesitates, but it was only a moment; they took no notice.

* * *

Review, please.


	9. Girl Meets Boy

**Title:** Girl Meets Boy

**Genre: **Television

**Series: **Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles

**Characters: **Cameron Philips/Allison Young

**Spoilers: **2x22 "Born To Run"

**Rating: **PG-13

**Summary: **Her father told her stories when she was young, fairy tales that haunted her present with eerie accuracy.

**Word Count: **1250

* * *

**Prompt: **_Saving Private Ryan-_"You want to leave? You want to go off and fight the war? All right. All right. I won't stop you. I'll even put in the paperwork. I just know that every man I kill the farther away from home I feel."

* * *

Allison Young didn't delude herself by thinking that her story started with 'Once Upon a Time', because there certainly was no 'happily ever after' coming. Fairy tales were all well and good as a girl, but as a fighter she had no time for the pretty contrivances of Disney or Grimm. Maybe before D-day, before the machines destroyed their way of life and left a smattering of survivors to try and fight for a dream that flickered less brightly every day. It didn't matter how the human race tried to tape the pieces back together, the picture would never be the same. There would always be scars, heavy lines of weight that curved the back of every person until no amount of spirit could make them do anything but bow down to Skynet.

In the kindness of strangers Allison was raised, never knowing her blood kin or any semblance of a normal life. The children's wing of the Los Angeles bunker was overcrowded and violent breeding ground for trouble. Small and delicate Allison had learned quickly when to hide and when to fight, because no adult's eyes could be everywhere at once. It was years later, eleven years old and already innocence lost, that Allison met the man she would consider her father. He'd appeared in the doorway, blocking the minimal light from the hall and creating an intimidating shadow that lay heavily across the dirt-smudged floor where they played. His eyes scanned the dozens of children's faces without emotion, no pity or lust in them, not like the others that arrived from time to time to gaze into the room. He didn't bring food or clothing like those with sympathy; nor candy and toys and a promise of a warm bed to sleep in like the others. His body was completely without motion as he stood there, no shifting of feet, no blinking of eyes.

He was like something she'd never seen before and when his eyes scanned her face he looked at her like she was something he'd never seen before. He walked forward, his steps graceful compared to the heavy steps of the warriors that marched past the open doorway day and night, and knelt beside her. "Can I tell you a story, Allison Young?"

He told her many stories, different adventures of the girl made of stone and the boy she loved. He described the scenes clinically, never sparing a detail, and despite the dryness of the his voice, without inflection or dramatics, he captivated her. He came every day, always with a story to tell. Some were long and took many days to tell. Sometimes he told her handful of facts instead. The stone girl was fond of knee boots and wearing her hair loose. The stone girl had a terrible temper but hid it well. The boy she loved was a savior, a hero to all. The boy she loved was just a boy, and fallible like all humans.

Before he left, every day always returning, he'd ask her what she wanted. At first it was nothing because Allison Young didn't know to want. She knew hunger, she knew cold, she knew pain, she knew sadness, but Allison Young didn't know to want. After weeks of always nothing, the strange man who embodied nothing tilted his head. He studied her, eyes blank, and asked a different question. "Are you cold?"

"Yes."

He brought her a blanket and the story of how the Boy touched the Girl's heart.

"Are you hungry?"

"Yes."

He brought her food, and the story of the Girl and her walks at night.

It continued for years, and though Allison grew, he didn't. He didn't suddenly have gray hair, or lines in his face, and if you had asked any of the adults in charge of the children what his name was they couldn't tell you. She was just seventeen when she was recruited into the Resistance, her speed a deciding factor that had drawn the attention of General Reese. Her father came to visit her one last time, before she moved to the infantry barracks and the people she would fight beside (living and dying every day) would replace the children of the wing (living and dying every day). They sat beside each other and they never touched, never had. They sat close enough to feel the heat of each other's bodies but not to touch skin. They sat together and he told her one last story and though she smiled, she was glad it was just a story. Just one last story, just one last question.

"You want to fight in the war?"

It surprised her, the sudden note to his voice. It wasn't a question, not really, it was a declaration with a small lilt to the end of it, a small note of resolve. She nodded despite the rhetorical nature.

"All right. All right." He'd never repeated himself before, and Allison was more unsettled by their last interaction than she showed.

Allison Young didn't believe in fairy tales, didn't believe that a girl of stone could become flesh, didn't believe that there was a hero who would save them all from Skynet, didn't believe that she was destined for anything other than a chestful of shrapnel and a slow death of choking on her blood. Allison ran through the battlefield like gravity didn't exist and the only thing holding her down was the heavy weight of the large gun she carried. With every machine she killed the closer to home she felt. She wore boots to her knees and left her hair loose and didn't think of her 'father' at all. She drank with her comrades, and left the smudges of dirt and blood on her face and wore them like a mask. When the rain, acidic and burning, took away her mask she worked extra hard to build a new one. For weeks it worked, she didn't dream of the cold girl and the warm boy or of the strange connection they shared, yin and yang, night and day. If her life began to resemble the fairy tales she worked hard to forget, if the echoes of those stories rippled across the pond of her mind, she'd never admit it.

If her general had the look of the Boy Hero, she didn't say anything. As her skills evolved and her ability to survive anything thrown at her became known she worked closer with the leader of Resistance, slowly taking the role of confidante and close friend, and the echoes of fairy tales deafened her ears to the approaching crescendo of too many coincidences, too much happenstance, too many names she already knew.

Then it happened, one day, an ordinary day in the life of a teenage girl fighting millions of machines that slowly but surely were killing off the last remnants of human life, he appeared out of nowhere, wearing nothing, and looking horrified. A boy who looked like General Reese, a boy whose look of horror could never match her own, a boy who was the Boy Hero.

Then she knew, she connected the dots, she stringed together the morals of the stories that her 'father' had told her and came to the only conclusion she could.

Allison Young wasn't made of stone, and stories were just stories.

John Connor may be the hero John Henry had foretold, but he'd never be the boy the Girl of Stone loved.

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Review, please.


	10. Shadow Dancing

**Title: **Shadow Dancing

**Genre: **Television

**Series: **Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles

**Characters: **Derek Reese, Cameron Phillips

**Spoilers: **1x07 "The Demon Hand"

**Rating:** PG

**Summary: **The day he truly saw her was the day his world changed.

**Word Count: **500

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**Prompt: **_Bringing Up Baby_- "Now it isn't that I don't like you, Susan, because, after all, in moments of quiet, I'm strangely drawn toward you, but – well, there haven't been any quiet moments."

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It's the shadows moving across the floorboards that get his attention; he doesn't seek her out, would never seek her out. You don't have to understand something to fight it, but it scares Derek more than a little that he does understand the machine's motivations. His years in the war have condensed his instincts down to three things; fighting, fucking, and sleeping. Cameron is an even baser manifestation of those instincts, fighting and-

He doesn't want to think of her second purpose in John Connor's life.

Her place in the future was clear, at General Connor's side, but here in the past did she know her place? Was she just as lost as Derek for the correct description of his purpose?

She's dancing in the shadows of her bedroom (not for sleeping) and Derek finds himself strangely drawn to her in the quiet moments of sunset. There's no one else in the house and the soft rubbing noises of her feet on dusty floorboards are grating on his nerve endings. He wants to yell at her to stop because machines shouldn't be beautiful, they shouldn't make his heart stutter in sudden reaction to the litheness of her form as it contorts to the music of his nightmares. It's those memories that make him stay, though, because briefly he's back there in the trenches.

Derek wishes later that he'd walked away, that he hadn't seen her there and hadn't let her shake the foundations of his belief system. She was just a machine with a program running that made her dance but no program could make her falter as she did. Had she felt his heavy steps in vibrations through the floor, heard his raspy breath with her superior hearing? Before his eyes she faltered and froze and Derek felt his breath catch in his throat even as moisture leaked from his eyes. Machines don't make mistakes, machines don't overextend or overcompensate or stumble to a stop. Machines are perfect, cold and calm and calculating; to err is human and she can't be human, not for him.

Derek is drawn to her in that moment because Cameron isn't a machine, not for those few minutes. She's a being of light and shadow and grace and the music that follows him through time echoes in his ears as he realizes that he can't hate, not completely, not anymore.

Then she starts to move again, repeating the same motions with eerie synchronization and its like he's living the moment again. He can feel his mind disconnecting as his body begins to move away. He can't help but want to stay and watch her, dancing for no reason at all. For the first time Derek realizes that there might be more to the machines than he'd ever thought, that there were hidden depths to their inner workings that he didn't understand.

You don't have to understand something to fight it, though.

You just had to avoid quiet moments where she isn't what she seems.

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Review, please.

_Special thanks to everyone who took the time to review this story. For the first few drabbles I got little to no response but then I started to get people commenting who liked it and that's what got me to finish these. I appreciate all my loyal readers and enjoy reading what you're thinking about what I've written._


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